I should really be grateful because, by and large, I haven’t been nearly as affected as a great many people have been by the horrible financial situation of the country. I began to get really worried when a number of teachers with whom I work were laid off. I read somewhere that teaching is the second most recession-proof job to have behind only childcare provider. I’m not sure if that’s actually the case, but I’ve never seen a teacher get laid off before because of the economy, so it hit pretty close. You may be wondering what the relevance of this post is to the general news of the site and why it’s not posted in my ranting section. Well, here you go: the economy did pack a pretty significant punch over at Wilde Times. The impact manifested itself in a couple of ways; most of them small, but noticable, nonetheless:

- There was a bit of a lull in posts and updates simply because we had to slow things down to conserve.

- The Second Wilde Times Sci-Fantasy Contest results were not posted as early as we’d hoped that they’d be.

- Here’s the one that making us mad: Publishing a collection of the winning stories is a costly endeavor. We simply haven’t been able to make this happen, so there will not be a printed collection for the second contest. Also, since the stories won’t be appearing in print, we thought it only fair to return publishing rights to the contest winners. Anyone who ordered a collection has been refunded, and writers, please feel free to publish your winning stories in print and/or digitally.

So, without any further ado, here are the winners for The Second Wilde Times Sci-Fantasy Writing Contest!!!!

First Place – Summer Kennedy, All Things Converge

Second Place – Paul Casson, The Belly of the Beast

Third Place – Eric Burke, Enough is not Enough

Honorable Mention – Sean O’Brien, Treetop Flyer

Honorable Mention – Kristen Stieffel, The Last Buffalo

Congratulations to you all!

In other news:

We’ve done away with the film review blog. It may reappear at some point in the future, so if you were a fan, let me know you want it back. While we’ve lost one blog, we’ve gained another:

I’m excited to announce that Nicolàs is launching Pure NRG, a new blog featuring some of his writings, thoughts, and works. Check it out using the “Blogs” link to the left.

If you’re interested in doing a bit of writing, shooting, drawing, or whatever for Wilde Times, check out the submission guidelines to the left.

New issues of Wilde Times and N0.1R are up in the webcomics section, and check back tomorrow for my first post in the musings section.